Once
it became clear to both the British and Irish governments
that the peace process was about bringing an end
to the IRA campaign against the British state, enormous
latitude was to be given to the Sinn Fein leadership.
Both governments worked on the premise that the
enormity of the leadership move away from its original
anti-partitionist goals in exchange for greater
power and privilege, North and South, was such that
the leadership would be greatly aided by deception.
A leading Irish participant at a meeting in September
1998 at Oxford University made it clear in relation
to the Good Friday Agreement. He described it as
'a delicately balanced compromise which can be destroyed
by truth ... honesty and straightforward talking
must be avoided at all costs.' Since then Jim Gibney
has argued that amongst the ever-growing range of
legitimate targets in the sights of the peace process
is truth.
Is
it any real surprise that things are at where they
are today? Why the governments are smarting so
much on this occasion is that it was not just the
republican grassroots who were being lied to - the
original intention behind the government facilitation
of fudge - by the Provisional leadership. Both governments
like everybody else were led along. As a sign of
his fury Bertie Ahern did not go as far as to say
that the Sinn Fein leadership ordered the robbery
but came close to it with his comments that it knew
about it. This is a far cry from three years ago
when in the wake of the St Patrick's Day break in
at Castlereagh, the Taoiseach stated that if the
IRA made a statement denying something they could
be believed. Now he has joined with those of us
who believe nothing until it has been officially
denied.
In
a bid to bolster its bunkum about securocrats out
to wreck the peace process Sinn Fein point to the
absence of evidence presented against the IRA thus
far. But lack of evidence has never prevented the
party from making allegations against all and sundry
from security force colluders to UDA pipe bombers.
The Sinn Fein position is made all the more threadbare
by Pat Doherty having appeared on BBC Spotlight
a matter of weeks ago to tell viewers that the dogs
in the streets of Strabane know which group is carrying
out 'tiger' robberies in the town yet the police
will not do a thing about it. In Strabane, seemingly,
the knowledge of dogs is evidence enough to satisfy
Sinn Fein. Likewise in South Down where Sinn Fein's
Mick Murphy could complain, 'there is a lot of dissident
activity in the area, but the PSNI has done nothing
about it.'
Hugh
Orde, whom the Sinn Fein leadership met recently
in a calculated move to accrue moral capital to
be used in the blame game once the party ensured
there would be no deal with the DUP, is now being
accused of being a securocrat by Sinn Fein. An indication
that the party is prepared to sit until Orde moves
on before giving its support to the police. A move
which will help prolong the peace process, and Sinn
Fein's fortunes, for another lot of years. Sinn
Fein expects us to believe that Hugh Orde is lying
about the robbery at the Northern Bank. There has
been no shortage of lying chief constables over
the decades for the party to point to by way of
reinforcing its allegation against Orde. But is
the current chief one of them?
The
PSNI have been stung by allegations that it was
asleep on its intelligence watch prior to the bank
robbery. Hugh Orde is aware that a similar blunder
by the force he commands would be a resigning matter.
Having already failed to prevent the robbery going
ahead, the effects of having 45 detectives pursue
the wrong firm of thieves would be devastating;
nothing short of a career suicide move. This leaves
little room for doubt that Orde was absolutely certain
before he put his head on the attribution block.
Orde
has been accused by both Martin McGuinness and Mitchel
McLaughlin of working to a political agenda. Both
are right. But it is not the agenda they would have
us believe. It is an agenda of bringing Sinn Fein
more closely into the structures of the state. Had
there have been any chance of a deal being struck
Orde would have been under tremendous pressure to
go no further than his under reported statement
(referred to in the Guardian 22 December) that a republican
group was responsible for the Northern Bank heist,
without specifying which. By holding last Friday's
press conference, Orde knew that his efforts to
have Sinn Fein embrace the policing structures were
dissipating each time he spoke. Presiding over the
collapse of his own design was hardly what he wanted
to be doing.
Sinn
Fein's make believe world of securocrats undermining
the police process is further shown to be ersatz
by the party's attacks on Joe Pilling, the NIO permanent
secretary, whom it was alleged oversaw a nest of
British "securocrats". Pilling was the
senior NIO official who at the time of the Good
Friday Agreement ensured that prisoners would not
be part of a deal that would see them released in
exchange for guns. He blocked such a proposal - ensuring
prisoners were released sans decommissioning - to
the annoyance of many of his colleagues, as a means
to facilitate both the peace process and Sinn Fein.
There
is no doubt that there are members of the British
security services who are deeply unhappy that Adams
and McGuinness are not being publicly pelted with
eggs and tomatoes at Vanguard rallies in the Ormeau
Park. But they are not in the driving seat of British
security policy. Those running the show know that
there is more than one way to skin a cat. They are
the type of people whom the Provisional leadership
was meeting behind the backs of its membership and
whose overriding objective was to ensure that Provisional
objectives were never secured, even if it meant
allowing them to become a green mafia in the process.
